Why do you put your self esteem in the hands of complete strangers?
Interpretation
The quote questions why individuals allow others, especially strangers, to impact their self-worth.
Helena Bonham Carter's quote highlights the importance of self-esteem and the tendency of some individuals to rely on external validation from others to determine their value. It serves as a reminder that one’s self-worth should originate from within rather than being contingent upon the opinions or judgments of strangers, who may not truly understand them.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-confidence.
Sometimes I get it right and I sometimes I get it wrong. But fashion is all about having fun. I think fashion has been hijacked by the fashion industry creating rules on what one should wear and I feel like breaking the mold and seeing that the world won’t crumble.
I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.
Sometimes I go, “What am I doing with my life?” But then I get letters from young women, or people come up to me, and they say, “You’ve made such a difference to my confidence.” And that is a good thing. I should read more fan mail though. I’m crap at responding.
My life had been very work-orientated, and all in close-up. Once I had the family, it went into sudden widescreen.
Very early on, you figure out that you put your self-esteem in the hands of strangers. There's a different commodity. There's the Helena Bonham Carter that everyone thinks they know, who really has nothing to do with me. But you just have to let that go.
Wear what you feel comfortable with. People say nasty things about what I wear in the street. I'm always in worst dressed lists, but you just have to dress for yourself and nobody else.
Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.
Of all tools, an observatory is the most sublime. . . . What is so good in a college as an observatory? The sublime attaches to the door and to the first stair you ascent, that this is the road to the stars.
When Alekhine recognizes the weakness in his position he has a tendency to become very aggressive. Patient defence is not for him if he can see the slightest chance of creating an attack. Yet sound strategy often demands that you submit to the opponent's will so as to strengthen your weaknesses and get rid of defects in your game.
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence -- these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.
When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience.
Maybe that's why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.
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